Marble Falls Way back when Obama and Biden were presidents, we used to hear backwash about “the nanny state” from conservatives. I was never sure what they were talking about, but it seemed to be whether or not Americans were getting advice about their rights, or maybe it was the notion of getting any help from the government whatsoever.
Like I say, I’m not sure, but I think I am now.
The head of the Department of Transportation for example put out a video about how he wants people to behave on airplanes. Ostensibly, this might seem like a good thing to do. The pandemic brought out some crazy in some travelers, and we need to see attendants and passengers able to fly safely. He may have claimed that was the trigger for the video, but then he opened his mouth. He railed about people looking like they were flying in their pajamas. Well, that’s because some of them are flying in their pajamas, sweatsuits, and the like. He wants to bring us back to the 50’s where men wore ties on the plane and women wore gloves. You can hear him going “tut, tut” as he delivers his perspective on what he sees as too much riff-raff in the air. Talk about nanny-ness!
Maybe Secretary of State Rubio wants to take us even farther back than the 50s? Human rights, forget about it! Looking at the guidelines on the annual human rights report, Nanny Marco says the only ones that count are “God-given” and maybe something about “natural” or inalienable rights, which somehow in the new regime are not human. As the Post reports,
The new guidelines offer an unapologetically U.S.-centric and religiously tinged view of human rights. “The United States remains committed to the Declaration of Independence’s recognition that all men are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights,” said the senior official, who, like some others in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to brief the media. The efforts to refocus on what the administration describes as “natural rights” mirrors some efforts under the first Trump administration, when then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo created a commission on “unalienable rights” in 2019. The commission was criticized for focusing on property rights and religious rights and downplaying the rights of women and gay people and made little impact before being sunsetted by the Biden administration.
Now, Trump may or may not be part of this nanny thing, but he wants us to be clear he’s no ninny. Take freedom of speech as an example. Some half-dozen Congresspeople who were veterans spoke out about the oath soldiers take to defend the Constitution and reminded them to understand whether their orders were legal. The top of Trump’s head blew off. He wants them tried for sedition and shot. So much for the putting the right to life out there as one of those God given things.
Meanwhile, Nanny Kennedy wants to give you his fireside advice no matter what doctors, senators, and public health experts say and sneak his opinion onto the CDC website on vaccines and autism, no matter what the science says. He’s a nanny and he knows best.
Washington is a wild, wild place these days!